Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Congress must address the serious immigration problem. But first …

Commentary by James Shott

When illegal immigration is the subject, a large faction
keeps saying that immigrants contributed greatly to building America into the
greatest nation on Earth, and that we should therefore give all those illegals
citizenship or some sort of legal status. And it is true that smart, dedicated,
hard-working people who came here for a better life made tremendous
contributions to the American success story.

But those people came here the right way, by following
immigration procedures. Right now, there are some 4.5 million people following
in their footsteps waiting to come to America legally.

Currently, however, there are some 11 million people inside our
borders who did not come here the proper way. About 40 percent of them are
foreigners who arrived legally, frequently on tourist Visas, and simply didn’t
leave when they were supposed to.

Most of the other 7 million illegals are low-wage workers and
their families who sneaked over the southern border, and even though they did
not enter the country honorably by obeying immigration laws are people who are
here for honorable purposes. And then there are the punks and thugs bent on
committing vicious crimes, including murder, against American citizens.

For every 100 actual American citizens there are roughly 3
people residing in the country illegally, and that is a huge problem.

Actually, there are two separate problems: One problem is
what do we do with the people here illegally, and the second, and most
important, is how do we remedy the circumstances that allowed this intolerable
situation to develop so that it never happens again?

Our immigration system has been both neglected and mismanaged,
and as a result the country has endured substantial harm. This situation has
been the genesis of frequent and strong calls to reform the immigration system.
But the immigration system is not what failed; the people in positions to
competently operate it and enforce the laws have failed – and in some cases,
refused – to do their jobs.

So, the question is: What do we do about the fact that we
have 11 million illegals now in the country?

Perhaps past history will be a good guide as to how we
should proceed. What the bipartisan US Senate “Gang of Eight” is proposing
today is very similar to what was done in the 1986 amnesty when Ronald Reagan was
President.

According to Mr. Reagan’s Attorney General, Edwin Meese,
writing in the Heritage Foundation’s “The Foundry”: “The path to citizenship
was not automatic. Immigrants had to pay application fees, learn to speak
English, understand American civics, pass a medical exam, and register for
military selective service. Those with convictions for a felony or three
misdemeanors were ineligible.” That is quite similar to the “Gang of Eight’s”
idea.

When the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 was
enacted, there were approximately 5 million illegal aliens in the country, and
about 2.7 million of them benefitted from the IRCA. What has happened since
then is that the number of illegal aliens has more than doubled.

What went wrong after that compassionate act to grant legal
status to those illegal aliens that caused not a decrease in the number of
illegals, but a dramatic increase?

“Well, one reason is that everything else the 1986 bill
promised—from border security to law enforcement—was to come later,” Mr. Meese
said. “It never did. Only amnesty prevailed, and that encouraged more illegal
immigration.” Had we done all that the IRCA required, we likely would not have
the problem we have today.

In fact, Mr. Meese writes, the failure of the federal
government to implement all of the elements of the IRCA to protect the nation from
people entering illegally in the years after its passage caused Mr. Reagan to
regard the amnesty as the greatest mistake of his administration.

Now that we see what happened after 1986 when we failed to
prevent people illegally entering the country, and this time we have to make sure
that does not happen again. We therefore have to yield the strong demand for
securing the borders and putting improved control programs in place before
doing anything to provide legal status of any kind to any illegal alien.

We have to become more sensible and less ruled by
compassionate impulses. The country and the states cannot afford amnesty for 11
million illegal immigrants, or for half that number, no matter how nice they
may be.

What must happen first is to do whatever is necessary to secure
the borders. After that – but only after that – whatever steps we take must
protect the interests of the United States before considering the interests of
illegal aliens. And we must honor the 4.5 million who are waiting to come to
America the proper way before helping illegals.

If you steal food because you are hungry, you have a good
reason, but you still broke the law. If you want a better life and sneak into a
country that offers promise for a better life, you have a good reason, but you
still have done something wrong.

Cross-posted by Maggie at Maggie's Notebook Who is this man? U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington D.C. U.S. Supreme Court J...

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